proxiscout_read_data: Read and parse ProxiScout data from CSV or XLSX files

In proximetricsR: Spectral Preprocessing and Chemometric Calibration of NIR Sensors

Read and parse ProxiScout data from CSV or XLSX files

Description

Reads spectral data files in either .csv or .xlsx format, identifies spectral data columns based on numeric column names, converts reflectance values from percentages to absolute units, and stores them in a matrix under the spc column.

Usage

proxiscout_read_data(file, references_file)

Arguments

file	A character string specifying the path to the input file. The file must be either have .csv or a .xlsx extension.
references_file	An optional character string specifying the path to a file containing reference values. See details.

Details

This function allows the user to give the path to one or two files at once.

If two file paths are given, the files are assumed to contain the spectral data in file, while references_file contains only the reference values. The column used to merge the files is chosen with the following priority:

1. A column name shared by both files that also looks like a sample identifier, i.e. matches the regex "^id$|^sample[ _.-]?name$|^name$|^sample[ _.-]?id$".

2. If no shared column name matches that regex, but each file has its own ID-like column (possibly under different names), those columns are used instead - even if the files also share other, non-ID column names (e.g. a Date column). This avoids merging on an incidental shared column when a proper sample identifier is available.

3. If neither file has an ID-like column, the first shared column name (of any kind) is used as a last resort.

4. If none of the above apply, an error is thrown.

Entries in the chosen columns must coincide. If none of the entries do, potential repetition indicators are removed (see proxiscout_repetition_pattern) before the merge.

If only file is given, it must contain the spectral columns, and may or may not contain reference values.

In general, inside file, any column AFTER the spectra are identified as predictions, and are collected into a matrix called predictions (if any exist). Columns that contain numerical values and do not contain typical column names (see extract_property_names for more details) that appear BEFORE the spectral data columns are identified reference values.

The function:

• ensures the file extensions are valid (.csv or .xlsx).

• reads CSV files using read.csv and Excel files using read_excel. In both cases the strings "", "-" and "NA" are interpreted as missing values (NA), so that numeric columns using these as placeholders are read as numeric.

• extracts spectral data (columns with numeric names).

• if exactly 257 columns with numeric names are found, then:

  • the spectral matrix is assigned the typical proxiscout wavenumbers (get_proxiscout_wavenumbers)

  • the data is assigned class "proxiscout_data".

  • spectral matrix is converted from percentage (0 to 100) to absolute (0 to 1) units.

• if the number of columns with numeric names is not 257, the spectral matrix is assigned the wavelengths/wavenumbers in the header of the file.

• stores the spectral data in a matrix named spc.

• stores columns after the spectral data in a matrix named predictions (if any exist).

• merges files together by a common column if multiple files are given.

Value

A data.frame where:

• Spectral data is stored as a matrix in the spc column.

• Columns identified as predictions are stored as a matrix in the predictions column.

• Other non-spectral metadata columns remain unchanged.

• Multiple files are merged into a single data.frame.

• If the files contain 257 columns in spc, the data is assigned class "proxiscout_data".

• A .repetition_group integer column is added, identifying rows that correspond to repeated scans of the same sample: for two-file input, rows merged to the same reference row share a group id; for single-file input, groups are derived from the sample ID column's repetition suffix (see proxiscout_repetition_pattern), optionally disambiguated by scanner/device and date columns when present. This column is meant for downstream aggregation of repeated measurements and is not guaranteed to be meaningful if no ID-like column is found in the input. For two-file input, rows in file with no matching sample in references_file have NA reference columns; .repetition_group is still assigned for these rows (grouped by their own sample id) so that their spectra can be aggregated even though no reference value is available.

Note

This function assumes spectral column names follow a strict numeric pattern (e.g. "3921.0") and removes any prefixed characters such as "X" that may be added by read.csv. These names are converted to numeric and used as column names of the spectral matrix.

Author(s)

Leonardo Ramirez-Lopez, Claudio Orellano

proximetricsR documentation built on Sept. 4, 2026, 5:08 p.m.